Do You Want to Lead an Organisation?

If you decided that leading others was your pathway to fulfilment, then leading an organisation is probably where you eventually need to be.

However, once again, I would stress that being honest with yourself on this matter is vitally important if you are going to find fulfilment in your life. Knowing what you are passionate about, and knowing what you need to do to fulfil that passion, is what life is all about. Everyone wants to lead a life that makes them feel good. That’s it. There is nothing else you need to know.

When you become the leader of an organisation you are given two amazing opportunities:

To improve the lives of tens, hundreds or thousands of employees so they can find fulfilment, and feel good about themselves; and

To leverage your impact on the world.

In truth, nobody really works for an organisation: they work for themselves.

Everyone is trying to find fulfilment by seeking a place to work that gives them the opportunities to meet their needs. If you are not able to provide these opportunities for people, they will look elsewhere. The degree to which you can meet employees’ needs will be the degree to which your organisation finds success. You can’t expect loyalty. You have to earn it by helping employees satisfy their motivations. They will only stay with you as long as their needs are being met.

Do you find fulfilment by caring about people and serving their needs, and thereby leveraging your impact on the world, or do you find fulfilment by doing what you love to do yourself, and putting your own message out into the world? If the answer is yes to the former, then leading an organisation is exactly the right thing for you. If the answer is yes to the latter then you will be best suited to pursuing another direction which allows you to follow your passion on your own or with a small team—for example, speaking, writing, making films, performing, etc.

If you are not passionate about caring for people, and you decide to go ahead with becoming a leader, you will need to recognise that your success and the impact you can have on the world will be limited: you will never be a great leader. You may be a good leader, but never great.

Life works according to the golden rule: when you care about others, they care about you. That is why caring about people, and what they care about (their needs), is so important if you are leading an organisation.